The View from Federal Twist: A New Way of Thinking about Gardens, Nature and Ourselves

About a year ago, I watched a webinar by James Golden highlighting his garden in New Jersey. Located on a ridge above the Delaware River, I was mesmerized by his photographs, especially his ability to take the best advantage of lighting, without resorting to any noticeable tricks or enhancements.

Those photographs, and Golden’s concepts of lighting and vistas, are the heart of his new book, “The View from Federal Twist: A New Way of Thinking about Gardens, Nature and Ourselves.” Unlike many other memoirs on building a garden, this author/gardener is very deliberate about working with pre-existing flora including “a tangle of vines, trees and dangling, dead limbs.” Although this approach may not appeal to all, Golden helps the home gardener consider how their plantings fit into the larger, surrounding environment.

Challenges included soil that is both very clayish and very wet. Some invasive trees were removed, but mostly he planted smaller trees, large shrubs, tall grasses, and perennials and allowed the plants to work out their own interaction and layout. Some plants failed, others thrived, and some overwhelmed. Parts of the garden are impenetrable. Throughout there is a thriving ecological web beneficial for many creatures.

Much of the book is a photo essay, well supported but not overwhelmed by text that weaves input from well-known authors, from visits to other gardens, and even quotes from literature or classical music concepts. He carefully watched the varying angles of the sun through the seasons to capture different moods, and for enthusiasts, carefully identifies all his planting choices.

The author also recognizes a “spirit” of the garden, even though that concept is contrary to his deeply held, science-based, rational beliefs. Accepting this idea of spirit has helped Golden to appreciate the development of the garden in ways over which he had little control.

Hardscapes are minimal, but a circle created with argillite, a plentiful grey stone found in the area, is indicative of the whole garden. “Its creation is an example of how the slow accretion of ideas over several years can offer a solution to a problem you didn’t know exists.”

Winner of the 2023 Award of Excellence in Gardening and Gardens from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries

Reviewed by Brian Thompson in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Summer 2023

Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium

Imagine a plant carefully and dutifully dried, pressed, and preserved between sheets of paper. Now imagine a room full of cabinets and drawers in which are stacked plant upon plant upon plant in this fashion, over 140,000 dried plant specimens in all. It would be a feat of admirable persistence and curiosity to explore every single specimen. Yet, that is exactly the task Helen Humphreys set out to do in writing Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium.

Over the course of a year, Humphreys does just this. She lingers, wondering aloud about the individuals who went out into the world, found these plants, and committed those plants to lives between sheets of paper. Images and stories throughout Field Study show the reader the variations between plant collectors: how they displayed the plants, the information they included alongside the plant, what kinds of plants interested each collector, and sometimes snippets of biography of the collectors themselves. Humphreys interlaces her own musings on history, culture, and ecological place as such thoughts are inspired by the specimens.These musings about dead plants collectively create a book about life and death and how we come to understand the losses in our lives. Partway through her project, after spending months thinking about the death of individual plants, Humphreys was forced to reckon with loss in her own personal life when her beloved dog became incurably ill and passed. Much of this book, in turn, became a love-filled meditation on the fleeting joys of her dog and the memories they shared walking everyday in the nearby woods surrounded by beautiful plants. That loss and grief shaped her meditations and sharpened her thinking on what we leave behind us when we pass.

This book is written beautifully and fluidly and Humphreys includes a well-chosen array of photographs and illustrations throughout, making it a delight to read. What at first glance appears to be a light and airy romp through a fascinating world of dried plants, however, ultimately becomes a rather serious examination of the fragility of humanity, personal loss, and what we collectively leave behind. Humphreys initially believed plants were the fragile ones. “And yet,” she says toward the end of her stay, “the flowers still take up their space, still resemble themselves, and I can feel their enduring presence, whereas I am starting to feel like I am the fleeting, temporary thing, that my human life is so brief in comparison to the genetic continuance of this gentian, or this violet.” This is not said without hope, though. As Humphreys understood following her dog’s passing, there is something beautiful to behold in such fragility and impermanence as new insights grow from between the cracks of loss.

Reviewed by Nick Williams in Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 10, Issue 5, May 2023

Versed in Living Nature: Wordsworth’s Trees

In the preface of Versed in Living Nature, Peter Dale and Brandon Chao-Chi Yen describe the contents: “We visit many of Wordsworth’s trees and explore their meanings and implications, personal, physical, cultural, religious, historical and political.” To their great credit, they do all of that in 320 pages.

The index under “trees” lists 58 varieties, with multiple pages for many, especially the oak and yew. Each tree is located in William Wordsworth’s poems. (It helps to have a little knowledge of the poems, but it’s not necessary).

The trees are also connected to the poet’s activities, his schooling, his years in the Lake District of England, his travels. Special attention goes to the people in his life, chief among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy. Dale and Yen quote her often, reinforcing her importance to his poetry.

Among others they meet, the novelist Sir Walter Scott appears almost as a side note during a visit to Scotland. The book is quite a literary Who’s Who of the British literary scene.

Adding to the breadth of the book are references to Dale and Yen’s visits to Wordsworth sites. In commenting on a scene with four yews in “A Tradition of Darley Dale, Derbyshire,” for instance, they note that only three survive today, and they are hard to find.

Very helpful are the contexts in which all these trees are placed. Some are political (e.g., the Napoleonic war), some economic (the Highland Clearances), some literary (the controversy over the Ossian poems).

Wordsworth was also a gardener. At Dove Cottage he “began to learn about gardens not as a gentleman dilettante but as someone who would supply cabbages for the kitchen” (p. 132). He learned enough to gain a reputation as a garden guru, someone sought for advice on horticultural matters.

Building on all the above, the authors develop Wordsworth’s ideas and how his trees connect to his understanding of Nature as both physical and transcendent. It’s a very impressive accomplishment.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in the Leaflet, Volume 10, Issue 5, May 2023

Moss: From Forest to Garden

When was the last time you stopped during a walk and looked closely at the tufts of tiny green leaves growing on the sidewalk or on the trunk of a tree or on a humble rock? Have you found yourself staring at a clump of moss in your garden wishing it were gone? If you wish to know more about mosses–and perhaps gain a bit of appreciation for them–this book is for you.

Moss by Ulrica Nordström is a book dedicated to these tiny, ancient plants that first appeared on this planet over 350 million years ago. Coming after green algae and before the vascular plants, mosses are often quite literally looked down upon as a nuisance or as simply less desirable than the more charismatic vascular plants that dominate our collective imagination.

This book is a love letter to mosses. Nordström’s love of these “comforting” plants is clear with page after page giving careful attention and consideration to these oft-overlooked plants that blanket much of our world. promises, “once you have entered the exciting world of moss, you will want to see more of it.”

Moss includes information for those interested in learning to identify mosses, including useful tools to bring to the field, along with photographs, illustrations, and key characteristics of some of the most common species of moss. A large portion of the book is devoted to moss gardens around the world–including Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island–and care-filled spotlights of some of the gardeners who are responsible for those gardens and who also clearly fell in love with mosses. It rounds out with projects and ideas for both outdoor and indoor uses for mosses, for those interested in bringing mosses into their own lives.

This has quickly become one of my favorite books. But, I must confess that I’m biased. Mosses are my favorite plants and have been since I was a small child wandering the forests where I grew up. I think mosses have a kind of charisma of their own, the unassuming kind that invites people to pay closer attention to what makes them special. Mosses teach a kind of meditation of presence if we stop moving long enough to pay attention. After reading Nordström’s book, I can’t help but think she’ll be successful in opening up this “hidden world” to many readers.

Reviewed by Nick Williams in the Leaflet, Volume 10, Issue 4 – April 2023

Constance Villiers Stuart: In Pursuit of Paradise

Constance Villiers Stuart (1876-1966) was an amazing woman who took advantage of her rather lofty position in life to write two impressive and widely praised books about gardens. One of them, Gardens of the Great Mughals, is included in the Miller Library collection. In her biography of Villiers Stuart, Mary Ann Prior explains how it all came about.

Villiers Stuart was born on the edge of British aristocracy. She had an almost astonishing ability to convince people to offer her what she wanted – information about gardens, invitations to visit, connections to influential people. One small example: she persuaded the Prince of Wales to invite her to tea at Sandringham Palace, near her own estate.

More important for our purposes, she accomplished much of the thorough research for Great Mughals and her other well-received book, Spanish Gardens: Their History, Types and Features, by simply talking to everyone she could find who knew about those gardens and recording what they told her. She included Indian and Spanish gardeners and fellow travelers on ships and trains as well as garden experts.

She received her own education from a governess and from much foreign travel with her parents. She did not go away to finishing school, as girls of her age and class usually did. How did she learn how to do all that quality research?

A major attraction of Villiers Stuart’s books and of Prior’s book about her are her sketches and watercolor paintings. English novels of the period describe painting as a desirable attribute for young ladies. In this case the painter put her skill to good practical use. She sketched and painted the multiple gardens she visited as well as their surroundings. Last year the Garden Museum in London exhibited many of her paintings.

Constance and her husband, Patrick, left England for India in January of 1911. They spent two and a half years there, often travelling around the country as his job required. They were part of the British Raj (Britain’s imperial rule over India), with all the privileges and opportunities for British travelers that involved. Constance used those opportunities to visit many ruined gardens from the Mughal period, paint what she saw, and collect the information she needed. The Mughal Empire, which was Islamic, covered most of northern and central India and what is now Pakistan between 1526 and 1857. The gardens were fabulous. When Great Mughals was published in 1913, it received rave reviews.

It’s much fun to read how Constance managed her life – her husband, her voluminous writing for Country Life magazine, her solo trip to Spain to research her second book. She very unusually used her opportunities to become a professional writer, not for cash, but because she wanted to. Prior shows very winningly the many reasons Constance deserves to be remembered.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in the Leaflet, Volume 10 Issue 3, March 2023.

The Heart of Penstemon Country: A Natural History of Penstemons in the Utah Region

Penstemons are an important genus of native plants throughout the western United States. They have also been hybridized to produce some excellent garden plants, well able to tolerate droughty summer conditions

The greatest concentration of species are found in Utah and each of these is profiled in “The Heart of Penstemon Country” by Mikel Stevens et al. While this may seem a bit out of scope for western Washington, a number of these species have ranges that extend into the eastern part of our state, and many of the Utah natives have been successfully grown elsewhere, or used in creating hybrids.

Another intriguing factor of this book is that it is written by three horticulturists, including Tony McCammon, who grew up in Tacoma. This perhaps explains why in the description of each species they make a distinction between the general description for the wildflower enthusiast, and the technical description for the botanist. Other factors considered are the potential or known experience with cultivation, the conservation status, and ethnobotanical uses.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Dwarf and Median Bearded Irises: Jewels of the Iris World

Kevin Vaughn is an active grower and breeder of iris in Oregon. His newest book, “Dwarf and Median Bearded Iris” focuses on the development of varieties smaller than the more familiar tall bearded selections. These are very useful garden plants, as they do not dominate their setting or requiring the staking often needed by their taller cousins. The history of their development may be of interest only to the most devoted iris fan (yes, I’m guilty as charged), but the author balances this with innovative planting designs and good suggestions for companion plants. He also names his favorite varieties and many are available from one of the several iris gardens in our region.

Long-time Arboretum Foundation members will remember Jean Witt (1921-2016), who was the widow of Joe Witt after whom the Winter Garden is named. Jean was also well known as an iris breeder, and especially of the medium size varieties. Until reading this book, I didn’t realize how instrumental she was in the creation of these classes that were only recognized and defined in the mid-20^th century. New varieties from her breeding have continued to be introduced on her behalf up until the last few years. One of my favorites is ‘Little White Tiger’ from 2009.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

A Romance with the Exotic Madrona, Alias of the Arbutus

Roy Martin is a retired University of Washington professor of anesthesiology and bioengineering. He is now pursuing a very different passion, the genus Arbutus, best known locally by A. menziesii, the Pacific Madrone. Eleven species are recognized and in “A Romance with the Exotic Madrona, Alias of the Arbutus,” Martin explores them all, visiting their native ranges in Mexico, western North America, and around the Mediterranean.

This book is very engaging, reading much like a travel journal in places and a history of human culture elsewhere. The author includes a detailed discussion of the common name for our native species, concluding that there are distinction even within our region. In Washington, it is Madrona or Pacific Madrone, while in British Columbia, the name Arbutus is typical.

After exploring the other species, Martin comes home to begin searching for outstanding specimens of A. menziesii. While not abundant, there are several examples of massive trees, hundreds of years old. Martin not only tells the natural history of each tree, as best it is known, but that of the people and locales that surround each.

It is clear that Arbutus menziesii has captured Roy Martin’s heart. “It is not an aggressive tree; it does not, as some trees do, grow rapidly in order to reach the upper stratosphere of the forest and thereby capture most of the available light at the expense of its neighbors. It is, rather, an uncommonly cordial tree, often contorting itself as necessary to find open spaces, through which light falls naturally, as if to accommodate smaller trees it would otherwise effectively starve.”

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Colchicum: The Complete Guide

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has recently been producing excellent single genus books. Known historically as botanical monographs, the works of the past twenty years give equal importance to horticulture. While the many species are considered for their habitats and qualities, so are the many selected varieties or developed cultivars that are important to gardeners. Illustrations are much more prominent than in older books, and include paintings by botanical artists, contemporary and historical, and excellent photography.

An example is “Colchicum: The Complete Guide,” by Christopher Grey-Wilson and Robert Rolfe, that delves into a genus of great diversity with over 100 species and an extensive list of hybrids and cultivars. Each is stunningly shown with close-up photographs, while the text sorts out the nomenclature for the enthusiast. At over 500 pages, it is helpful for the average gardener to pick out a few key recommendations by the authors.

Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ is “without question the finest white autumn crocus grown in gardens.” ‘Autumn Queen’ is the top choice for early-flowering and displays tessellation (a checkboard pattern on the petals), while ‘Giant’ is “extremely vigorous in the garden and quick to multiply.” Finally, the double ‘Waterlily’ “is one of the most distinctive and eagerly sought garden cultivars.” Having grown all of these, I agree with these assessments.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

A Virgin for Eighty Years: Aucuba, an Overlooked Treasure

One of the most unusual titles in the Miller Library collection is “A Virgin for Eighty years,” by Linda Eggins, a book about the genus Aucuba, and primarily one species, A. japonica. The reason for the title? It’s complicated.

This plant was introduced from Japan to English horticulture in the 1780s and became very popular for the different color patterns of the leaves and its ability to adapt in many garden and indoor settings. However, Aucuba is dioecious, having male and female flowers on different plants, and all the English plants were female. It was known to have bright red berries in its native range, but these did not develop without a male plant nearby. Japan had closed its border to European explorers and it wasn’t until a change in diplomatic policy occurred in the 1860s that a male plant could be obtained and introduced with great fanfare into English horticulture.

Eggins tells this engaging story and other aspects of this plant’s history in science and cultivation, including its reign as a high-status plant. This is contrasted with its fall in status in the early 20^th century, and is now regarded as a plant that “languishes with an undeserved reputation as a car-park plant, a filler to bulk-out dark corners in unpromising positions.”

The last half of this book is an extraordinary effort to sort out the many cultivars that have been selected of Aucuba. Eggins, and her late husband, Howard Eggins, first established the British National Collection of this genus, which is now grown at the University of Birmingham.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin